Pope Leo
“Just secularism does not consist of excluding religion from the public space,” declared, in French, Léon
Speaking for the first time about two hours after his arrival in Paris, the Pope estimated that “Catholic schools have their rightful place in the educational landscape of a country like France,” while the status of private schools, which educate more than 2 million students in France, is regularly questioned.
Leo Two months ago, the French Parliament adopted a law creating a right to “assisted dying”, strongly opposed by the Church.
Having made AI a major theme at the start of his pontificate, the pope warned against the risk of losing “our humanity in the middle of the + paradise of machines + which invade and condition our daily lives”.
He called before Emmanuel Macron to develop “ethical discernment” in a context of growing concern over the supervision of artificial intelligence tools. The French president had previously, in his speech, advocated an “international organization” to avoid AI concentrated in “a few hands”.
“Spiritual thirst”
The Pope, applauded for a long time, also assured that “France is very often at the heart of (his) prayer”, he “who does not forget his Norman and Béarnaise family origins”.
This trip to France is “a great honor” which arouses “hope,” declared the French president, who had previously spoken privately with the pope.
“French secularism” is “in no way the negation of religion”, he insisted, assuring that the French Republic is fighting the “resurgence” of “unbearable” anti-religious acts, which “strike the Christian religion” and of which “the Jewish and Muslim communities are also victims”.
The presidential couple welcomed Léon XIV on his arrival at Orly where he received military honors.
Smiling, the 71-year-old Pope greeted and blessed young people on the tarmac, wearing T-shirts with the travel motto “So that the world has life”.
To celebrate his arrival, church bells across the country rang for seven minutes.
“I travel to France as elsewhere in the world as a disciple of Jesus Christ, wishing to proclaim peace, the peace of Christ throughout the world,” the pope said aboard the plane between Rome and Paris.
Questioned during this trip about the revival of Catholic spirituality in France where baptisms are on the rise, Leo XIV welcomed this “spiritual thirst”.
For Andrée Estienne, a 76-year-old retiree, this arrival “provides calm in a troubled world”. “We will be able to be together, gathered around him,” she testified in front of the Parisian church of Saint-Eustache.
Draconian security
During this first marathon day, the Pope will speak around 3 p.m. at UNESCO, before a 2.5 km popemobile walkabout in the center of Paris.
“I didn’t sleep all night. I am very eager to see him, I am very happy to welcome him,” declared Isabelle Bourdon, 67, retired, estimating, while she waits for the area of this stroll to be opened to the public, that this pope “says comforting things”.
“I can’t wait to know what message he wants to send to the French,” explained Marion Desjars, 21, a psychology student, who “feels that it’s excitement.”
Leo
In the evening, a large prayer vigil should bring together 80,000 young people at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, for a program mixing pop-praise, exchanges with the pope and exhibition of the “holy tunic of Christ”, a relic kept in Argenteuil (Val-d’Oise).
This visit in three stages – Paris, Lourdes and Metz – mobilizes draconian security, with telling figures: 17,000 volunteers, 15,000 police officers and gendarmes, 2,500 accredited journalists and a budget of 27 million euros.
